A Man Like That Should Have Had Children
by Till-Owlyglass
Summary: Carlo is forced by the other men to go to the military brothel. There he remembers Francesco and discovers a new love.


**A Man Like That Should Have Had Children...**

Carlo Guercio stood nervously waiting in the bedroom of the brothel. He was only there because the other men in his division had noticed that he was not a frequent patron like themselves and had badgered him into going. "Carlo," they had said, "you really must go. In times of war, when a man is away from his sweetheart, it's only natural for him to settle for the nearest obliging woman to relieve his urges. Come now, if you keep up this act then you'll have everyone thinking you're a faggot!" They had even offered to pay for his first time. So you see, Carlo Guercio had no choice, he had to go to the brothel for he was what the men had joked about. A faggot. Carlo hated the word but it was the truth. If the men found out that his tastes were so different from theirs then he would become an outcast, a creature to be feared and mocked. Carlo would not be able to survive without the beautiful young men he had grown to love so he had no choice but to keep up the pretence of an ordinary man, built the way God intended.

And so, with numb legs he had walked to the military brothel and knocked on the door. An old woman had answered. She was spectacularly ugly with a pinched, wrinkled face and a permanently stooped back. Her grey greasy hair hung lank around her face and she had a mole which sprouted hair in the middle of her forehead. After a brief scrutiny with scrunched eyes she had permitted him entrance, took in her gnarled, arthritic hand the money the men had collected for him and pointed him in the direction of the bedroom in which he was now standing.

The whore entered from a curtain to his right. There seemed to be a moment of breathlessness as they stared at one another. She reminded Carlo of either a doll or a child. She was small, with delicate features and wide brown eyes. Her hair was a deep natural red in colour and styled in perfect corkscrew curls-adding to her doll like appearance. Her cheeks were rosy and her eyelashes unnaturally long and dark; she fluttered them flirtatiously at him. Carlo supposed that any normal man would have considered her very beautiful, but he felt nothing for her.

The whore looked at the man before her; he was a giant, with thick muscled limbs and a broad torso. There was something about this man which she found incredibly sweet, perhaps it was his nervousness which was uncommon in a man his size. He stood before her avoiding her gaze and twisting his cap in his hands.

"Follow me, my darling." she said gently, taking his hand and leading him to the bed. His palm was moist with sweat. They sat together, him still not making eye contact.

"You are new." she stated.

"Yes." he replied simply.

"Do not worry, sweetheart. I will make everything perfect." she said soothingly. There was a brief silence as Carlo stared down at his cap which he kneaded between his fingers. The whore reached out a small delicate hand and placed it atop his, stilling them.

"What is your name?" he whispered finally, daring to look up at her. She gazed at him seductively and he looked quickly away.

Normally the whore would give a man who asked her this some false, exotic name or ask him what he wanted her to be called, but there was something about this man which compelled her to tell the truth. She hadn't the heart to lie to him for some reason. She leant close to his ear and Carlo flinched.

"Dominique." she whispered huskily, flicking his earlobe with the tip of her tongue. She pressed her hands to Carlo's broad chest and pushed him back until he was lying on the bed, then slipped off the pink silk robe she was wearing, her body was as pale as alabaster but Carlo took no notice. She hurriedly undid the buttons on his shirt until his tanned brown chest was exposed. She smiled at how perfectly formed this man was and began to kiss down from his neck, over his broad chest and the six muscles which bulged on his stomach until she finally stopped at his navel with its light trail of brown hair which disappeared under the waistline of his breeches.

Carlo lay there staring up at the ceiling, wishing that he could be anywhere else in the world at that moment, he'd even have settled for being back in the freezing cold of Albania. He felt his breeches being undone and pulled down his legs. A moist tongue on his manhood caused him to jump suddenly.

"Relax, my love." the whore murmured, stroking his thighs, "I will take care of you." she went back to her seduction. Carlo lay there and to his surprise found that the stimulation was actually making him become aroused. He closed his eyes and thought of Francesco. He thought of his slender fingers, his perfect mouth and of the glimpses he had caught of him whilst in the showers. He recalled the fantasies he used to have of him; it wasn't some red-head whore doing this to him, it was Francesco and he wasn't lying on some soiled bed in a stuffy brothel, he was lying under a tree on a hillside in the blazing sun in Albania. The ecstasy became too much to bear.

"Antonio!" he screamed out when he reached his release. The whore sat up wiping her mouth and pulled her robe back on. Carlo lay on his back panting, all the while his head was abuzz with thoughts; in screaming a man's name he had unwittingly revealed his true urges, why had he screamed out the name of his captain if he had been imagining Francesco doing things to him?

Slowly and stiffly he rose from the bed and righted his uniform. Finally he plucked up the courage to look the whore in the eyes. She had been waiting for him to, looking at him expectantly with raised eyebrows.

"So, you're one of **_those_**." she said with a knowing look. Carlo merely nodded. She stood up, took his hand and led him to the door.

"Come back whenever you need to and ask for Dominique. I shall talk to Mama about always bringing you to me alone." she said gently. Carlo was glad that she had stopped calling him all of those ridiculous pet names and had dropped all pretence of seduction. He looked down at the girl and felt a rush of tenderness and a sliver of respect for her.

"Thank you, Dominique." he said and left.

When he returned to the barracks the men surrounded him, congratulating him and asking for a detailed commentary of how it had went. When he had a free moment, Carlo looked across at Captain Antonio Corelli as he practiced his mandolin and smiled, he knew why he had cried his name.


End file.
